Vogue 8600

Here’s my latest matelassé project, Marcy Tilton’s jacket. It’s got a large, oversized collar and deep pleats at the waist for shaping. The pattern photos must be made with a thin taffeta fabric, because the jacket looks super crisp. Mine doesn’t because of the bulky fabric I chose to make. Mine also seems to have more shape, because the body inside it has waaay more shape than the model’s, which seem to sit perfectly straight from shoulder to hemline.

The matelassé was bulky and had a mind of its own, so each seam and box pleat is catch-stitched down in order to ‘press’ the seams. Pressing a scrap of the matelassé completely flattened it. Not good. I tried ‘pressing’ the pleat edges through the hem bands in the front as the line drawing indicates so that they’d be crisp, but the fabric moves a lot on its own, and the edges/corners would not lay flat. So I left them alone as a nod at a peplum look.

The cuffs are very deep – about 8 inches (20cm) – and are designed to be folded back, if desired. I’ve been wearing them not quite doubled back in half as they seem too short exactly in half, and too long not folded up at all. And the back pleats release at the bottom of the shoulder blades. I made a sway back adjustment, and shortened the waist on this version, but you can see how it balloons out in the back while being worn. I’m sure most of this is due to my fabric choice.

As mentioned in my previous post, the front facings, undercollar and hem facings were all cut from a crinkle polyester taffeta from deep stash. The lining is rayon bemberg in a tone-on-tone match with the crinkle taffeta. No one’s going to see it, because this jacket looks pretty weird unbuttoned. Here’s the underside of the collar.

See how large this thing is? It looks fabulous as a dramatic collar, but it’s not quite big enough to keep one’s head warm.

My final thoughts on this: It’s an interesting fabric in an interesting jacket pattern. I think if I had made it out of a crisp taffeta (suggested fabric, btw), it would have looked like a box with a big collar on me. It has an extraordinary amount of ease – no FBA required! I have long wanted to make up this pattern, just for the collar, and I’m happy I did.